Redditor Rick_Persson says he was always skinny growing up, crediting his slender frame to playing too many video games. Everything started to change, however, when he got a gym membership at 17 years old. That’s not to say things changed, quickly – quite the contrary, in fact. “I had no clue of what I was doing and so I made absolutely zero gains,” he explains in a post to r/fitness, “Half a year later I gave the weights another try, this time without the friends involved.”

At just 5’8” and 110 pounds, Rick knew that he had to eat at a calorie surplus in order to gain muscle. That very first summer of lifting he managed to gain 20 pounds, noting that “Having always been skinny I did not have a lot of appetite, therefore I had to force eat a lot.” Forced eating eventually led to him gaining 50 pounds, putting him at a “straight up fat” 190 pounds.

Enter: the cutting phase.

So I started dieting at 190 and In my head i thought that i would be ripped at 170…oh how wrong i was. My diet lasted for just over 8 months, and i got A LOT better at dieting as time passed. As ripped as i thought I would be at 170, I was at 145.
This is what a typical day of dieting at 2000 calories would look like:

After shedding the fat, Rick is now sitting at an absolutely shredded 145 pounds and says that he is currently reverse dieting from his 8 month cut so that he can “begin a lean gaining phase as lean as possible.” The before and after photos are nothing short of incredible:

Before:

imgur

9 Months Later:

instagram

At 190 Lbs.:

imgur

After Cutting For 8 Months:

imgur

imgur

imgur

imgur

imgur

imgur

imgur

For those of you out there who are now hoping to emulate rick, his workout routine is as follows:

My workout routines:

1st year of lifting (5 day split):
1.Chest and tri
2.Back and bi
3.Legs
4.Shoulders and traps
5.Arms
rest
rest

And this is the routine that I am now following, it is a modified PPL with a 4th day of push. I set this up myself, and I do not recommend you follow it, unless you want to focus on Chest, shoulders and tri’s!
• Push (chest focus)
• Back
• Rest
• Push (shoulder focus)
• Legs
• Rest
repeat

This routine is heavily focused on “push” and in my opinion it has a lot of rest. Its basically 2 days on and one off, and the volume is quite moderate. This is how it looks for now, when i stall, I will increase volume where I see fit.